


Fallen

by AmeliaFriend



Series: To Touch The Sky [4]
Category: The Sparticle Mystery
Genre: 3rd person pov, Gen, post season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaFriend/pseuds/AmeliaFriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I <i>told</i> Thomas to stop leaving Dimension Portals where anyone could wander into one.<br/>This really isn't how I wanted to spend my first free weekend in three months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barely louder than a whisper, her lips move, and a single hoarse word escapes.   
> “Mummy?”

It had been a good day, less stressed than many had been recently, the whole Tribe working together easily, fitting together as parts to a larger machine - without the flare up of the arguments that had become more common as their goal became less visible - less likely - especially after already failing once.

Reese's head snapped up towards the woods where all the branches suddenly began to rustle, indicative of life within. She stood slowly, well aware of the dangers that lurked within trees now the adults couldn't keep them away. The noises stopped, the surroundings silencing for a moment, before the originator of the movements jumped, appearing behind the bushes - only the sheer familiarity of the face halting a startled scream from her throat.

"You're It," Frankie cried, a grin on her face, unaware of how much she had scared her friend in the seconds before, barely managing to touch Reese's shoulder before sprinting away to the safety of the green foliage, the confines of which she had only just escaped.  
Reese stilled a moment, before giving chase - never let it be said that the youngest of the Sparticles wasn't also the most competitive - but Frankie knew the trees better, and always had - preferring to spend her time amongst them and Liam, while Reese felt her time was of more use curled up inside the Spartivan with a book or two intended for someone closer to Kat than herself, for an audience of at least ten years her senior - the warmth of the van and the first choice of blankets having nothing to do with her decision, naturally.

It was too late that the nine year girl spotted the tree root protruding from the ground, too late to stop her running or even alter her path.  
It was too late as she felt her toes jar against the wood, sending a spasm of pain all the way up to her knee.  
It was too late as she threw her arms in front of her, hoping to break her fall even just the slightest.  
It was too late as she saw the floor rush up to meet her, cold and hard and unable to avoid.  
It was too late as she screamed louder than she had done since her parents had disappeared - as she screamed without words, without intent, without focus.  
It was too late as she felt her blood run cold and boil over at the same time, fear and stupidity and self-regret, and she shouldn't be able to feel this much in this short a time but she can.

It was too late as everything turned black, and there was nothing.

\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--

Comfort seeped through her bones as it seeped through the awareness of the little girl who occupied the space between the waking and the sleeping, the haunting place of those who had escaped from the clutches of their various dreams and who were aware of the world, yet sustained no serious desire to participate in the waking world, of the real world, as of yet.  
Her eyes flickered, as consciousness inched ever closer with the realisation, that her final thoughts had been in the forest, with the ground approaching too fast, and that she wasn't there any longer - the comfort was more than she had felt in months, since long before the camping, the van, where the ground is hard, and the bedding cold, and no amount of tossing and turning was ever going to change that fact.  
This was a comfort not felt since the hotel, since she had slept in a real bed. Consciousness came all too violently when she realised she no longer had any indication as to where she currently was.

Her eyes shot open with a speed she didn't know she possessed as she tried to take in every aspect of the room she was laying in - the too white walls and floors and ceilings and bedding, with a red blanket that came up to only her waist being the only splash of colour in the room. She panicked more when she caught sight of the myriad of machines that were connected to a whole array of wires and tubes going into and out of her body, and tried to pull at them - the more rational portion of her brain going 'They are here to help you', the louder, more dominant portion of her brain going, 'Get them out. Get them out.'  
Suddenly she was aware of just how much everything hurt, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and the machines began to beep louder and make their presence ever more aware, as Reese decided she didn't like it here - she didn't being alone amongst so many people, not after she had become used to their little pseudo-family - because for the first time since the Disappearance, she was truly alone, she was truly in a place where she could just shout, and Sadiq would come, or Kat, or Tia or Jeffrey - all of which who had become parents to their rag-tag group of adult returners - or Frankie or Liam - who were the best friends she'd ever had, Disappearance or no Disappearance - or even Holly or Callum - who don't actually like her, but put up with her, and despite their words and the occasional action, would never purposefully let anything bad happen to her.  
And she was alone, and scared, which made her feel more alone, which made her feelings of fear all the more vivid, and she felt her breathing speed up, and she knew she was about to start hyperventilating, when a hand brushed across her forehead, words she couldn't quite understand following shortly behind.

Reese's eyes moved upward to catch the face that the hand belonged to, and catch it she did.

Suddenly she didn't feel like she was about to start hyperventilating - she felt like she was never going to start breathing ever again.

Because the hand was attached to a face she knew very well, a face she knew better than her own, a face she hadn't expected to see again for a very long time, and a face she had hoped to see every day for so long it hurt to remember.

Barely louder than a whisper, her lips move, and a single hoarse word escapes. 

“Mummy?”


	2. I'm in Kansas (But I'm not Home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little voice whispers in her head.  
>  _Lies._

The word is out of her mouth before she can stop it, and she knows the older woman hears it instantly, because the hand stills for a fraction of a moment, as she stops and looks at her daughter properly - looks at the expression of terror spreading across her face, terror that the elder blonde would never understand, no matter how often she questioned her only daughter, her only child.  
But there will be time for that later, when the flood of doctors and nurses, when the flood of professionals who had told her scarcely three days before to prepare for the worst, because baring a miracle, there was almost no chance of her baby ever waking up again.  
 _'Look at her'_ , she wants to shout at them, she wants to scream from the rooftop, tell everyone she sees, _'Look at my miracle. Look at my baby.'_  
But there will be time for that later, when the machines are removed, and Reese will be safe, and everything can go back to how it was before.  
For now she settles on stroking her daughter's hair, "Mummy's here." She whispers, "Mummy's here. You're going to be just fine. Mummy's here."  
She is quite sure who she's trying to convince with those words, but they work on both of the blonds, the pair slowly relaxing, even if they never want to release their grip on the other.

A little voice whispers in her head.  
 _Lies_.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
They tell her the whole story four days later, when she's strong enough to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time, when they think she can handle it.

She's been in a coma, they tell her, been so very deeply asleep, for a long time, nearly nine months to be precise - and most people had given up on her ever waking again.  
 _The adults had been gone for nine months._

She's been on her way to a mine - to the Sandstone Caves - her and Miss Loman, when their car had been hit by another. She'd hit her head really hard - of course there had been other injuries, but those were all gone now - but Miss Loman hadn't managed to survive.  
 _That's not what happened - you met Sadiq and Jordan and Ami and Callum - and the adventure started that day._

Nothing makes sense, and everything makes sense, and Reese just wants to go back to the Spartivan, to not chase after Frankie, and to be safe.  
 _But you want to bring your mum and daddy along as well._

And everything is different and strange, and old and new at the same time time, but mum's here, and she'll make it all okay.  
 _Because that's how it worked out last time...right. The adults fixed everything._

There are still questions that Reese doesn't want to ask.  
 _What about the adults returning?_  
They can't answer questions that aren't asked.

 _Do you believe them?_  
The little voice gets louder.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
"When did all the adults return?" Reese asks her daddy that evening, while her mum is getting some food.  
Her daddy frowns, but smiles at the same time - nobody seems to stop smiling at the moment, and it's almost scaring Reese more than the differences between the world she tripped in, and the world she woke in.  
"When did all the adults leave?" Her daddy replies with a question, and Reese feels the floor fall from beneath her - metaphorically of course.  
She tries to explain anyway, "When the Sparticle Project was switched on - you all left." She can feel the hysterics building, and that's never a good thing, especially hooked up to as many machines as she still is. "We f-formed T-tribes. Where's Sadiq?" She asks, her voice almost ragged, terror on her face that there hadn't been since she first woke up.  
"Sadiq?" Her daddy questions, and he's confused, but so's she, so she can't help him too much.  
"H-He's the Tribe Leader, w-with Kat. They wouldn't leave me, they wouldn't leave me, they wouldn't leave me..." She repeats her mantra over and over as the words quickly become illegible, until she's just screaming - screaming at everything and nothing, and at whatever changed.  
She screams until a nurse comes in and puts something in her IV, and then she starts to fall asleep, her daddy whispering the whole time, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

 _I told you they were liars._  
She welcomes the voice that now almost sounds like Sadiq, the voice that is the only being who understands, the voice that gets louder.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
She doesn't mention them after that.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
They let her go home only a week later, her 'episode' put down to stress and fear and words that she has no chance of understanding before her thirtieth birthday.  
She's wearing real clothes for the first time in too long, for the first time since she woke up from her coma, from her real life - she truly doesn't know which to believe - and she's pushed in a wheelchair that looks comfier than it actually is, and helped into a taxi.  
Her first thought upon seeing the house in isn't _'home'_ or _'I missed here'_ , but _'real food'_.  
The word _'home'_ doesn't seep into her thoughts until that night - and the word doesn't evoke an image of her bedroom, or her house, or even her street.  
It evokes an image of a van that used to belong to the police, a van that was stuffed to the brim with bags and kids and bedding and clothing and ideas and insanity and the future.  
It evokes an image she wants to return to.

She fishes out a notebook from the drawer beside her bed - her parents didn't touch a single thing while she was ... away ... and for that she's glad, because it means she still knows where everything is.  
The notebook is pale pink, and it has Belle in her yellow ball gown across the front of it, and it's far more suited to the girl she was, than to the girl she is, but that doesn't matter at the moment.  
The pen is just as obnoxious, a gel pen, with a fluffy ... ball at the top, and only wrote in pink.  
It's strange how different she is to the child that wasn't allowed to be out of sight of Miss Loman, who wouldn't do anything without checking with at least three adults before hand.  
Having no adults to ask cured her of that habit pretty quickly.

She writes all night, every detail she can remember, about the Sparticles, about the Disappearance, about the actual Sparticle particles that Kat taught her so much in accordance to.  
There are pictures as well, crude things, but they do their job well enough, and when she closes her eyes, she can see them better now.

She hides the book when she goes down to eat breakfast the next day, but obviously not well enough, because her mum finds it, and she shouts at her.  
 _'We just want what's best for you'_ , _'You've got to stop this make believe nonsense'_ , and _'It's not real'_ are thrown around a few times, but Reese doesn't care, and fishes the book out of the bin the second her mum's back is turned.

 _Trust me, not them. They're lying to you Reese. Trust me._  
The voice sounds like Holly now.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
It's three days after she comes 'home' that her parents finally let her leave the house.  
They go down to the supermarket - the one where the four of them had gone the day of the Disappearance, when they first Kat and Liam, when she poured oil across the floor, and made the boys crash their carts.  
It makes her smile to think about, and she doesn't hide it.  
Her parents don't mind her smiling.  
It's better than the blank nothing they had been receiving recently.

Exactly twenty four seconds after walking into the shop, she realises it was a bad idea.  
Exactly twenty four seconds after walking into the shop, she walks into Sadiq. Literally.

"Sadiq," she whispers, too softly for him to hear, and for that she's grateful - because this is Sadiq, but at the same time this isn't _her_ Sadiq, and she just wants her family back.  
He leaves the shop without a second look in her direction, and she's almost glad when the voice whispers.  
 _I know how you can get home._

And it's mad and it's crazy, but she could go home, and that's all she's wanted since she woke up in this world that wasn't hers.  
And all she needs to do is make _one_ of them believe her.

\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
She spots Callum the next day.  
She knows better than to approach him.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--

They tell her about the tests three days after that.  
They tell her that they love her and they're worried about her.  
They tell her that everything is going to be okay.

 _Lies!_  
Holly's voice screams inside her head, and Reese doesn't even pretend to shut her up.

She doesn't _want_ to go back to hospital.  
She doesn't _want_ to have more tests.  
She doesn't _want_ to go back to who she was before the Caves.

Reese knows her parents are finding it hard to cope, after so long of waiting, only to nearly give up, and then she wakes up - but she's not the same - she's not the girl that got into the car that morning.  
Reese knows her parents are finding it hard to cope, hard to cope with the daily nightmares, with the constant refusal of medication, with her half-conscious screams for people she's doesn't know, for people she'll never know, to come and get her, to come and save her.

Reese has never been what other people would call _'normal'_ , but then she begins to move chairs without touching them, and she changes the television channel with only a thought, and Reese knows her parents are trying to get specialist help, and Reese knows her parents know that they are in far too deep, and Reese knows her parents hope she won't end up hating them.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
It's nearly bedtime when they try to get her into her car, but she catches on first - and she knows that if she goes into the hospital, she's never coming out, and she needs to go home, because this isn't _home_ \- she wants Sadiq and Kat, not mum and daddy - she wants the Spartivan, not a room that's too pink.

 _Run._  
Screams Not-Holly, and Reese doesn't have a better idea so she does as she's told and runs.

She's just wearing jeans and a t-shirt with no jacket and it's thundering outside, and her shoes are too small, and they pinch her feet but she can't stop running - not if she wants to go home, not if she ever wants to see something beside the too white walls of another hospital for the rest of her life.

Kat lives near here, Reese thinks, and Liam lives near Kat, and they were really close even before the Disappearance, that's why everyone thought they were brother and sister.  
Kat will understand, even if Reese doesn't entirely, because Kat is clever and if something can be explained she will understand it, especially if it's about Sparticles and her dad's work.  
And Kat will help, and Kat will believe her, and Kat will get her home.

She keeps running, and her tears are blending with the rain falling down her face, and she can't tell where she is, only that she needs to keeping running, even if she can't see anymore.  
She keeps running, until she runs into someone and she falls backwards onto the ground, her elbows hitting against the hard surface and scraping the skin away.  
She keeps running, until she looks up and realises she doesn't have to run anymore.


	3. Please Believe Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's _Holly_ , she realises, Holly who hated her, but liked her and tried to save her life right at the end.  
> Holly who was strange and lonely in her own way, and just wanted some friends.  
> Holly who was a Sparticle, and Holly who could help her.

It's _Holly_ , she realises, Holly who hated her, but liked her and tried to save her life right at the end.  
Holly who was strange and lonely in her own way, and just wanted some friends.  
Holly who was a Sparticle, and Holly who could help her.

Reese throws her arms around Holly's waist, and buries her face into Holly's shoulder.  
"What are y..." She tries to pull off Reese, but the blonde takes a step back of her own volition anyway, and begins speaking before Holly can finish even her short statement.  
"Please Holly, you've got to help me." Her voice is firm, yet at the same time there is a very noticeable quiver for those who know it is there, and the cold is seeping through her bones faster than her shivers can warm her up.  
Running away half-dressed in the middle of the night might not have been her most sensible idea ever then.  
Holly pulls away sharply, distrust suddenly present in her eyes, and turns to abandon the younger girl alone on the street.

 _Don't let her leave._  
Not-Holly's voice reverberates inside her skull.  
 _Make her believe._

"Your name is Holly and despite what you say, you love your parents, but you hate it when they argue, and they argue a lot. You hate travelling, and you hate aeroplanes, but most of all you hate the jet lag you always end up with. And sometimes you wish that the adults would just disappear, because kids could run the world so much better." Reese blurts the words to Holly's retreating back, and feels a sliver of hope plant deep inside her heart as the brunette girl stilled at the statement, and she's wishing, praying, that Holly will believe her, even though she sounds insane, because Sadiq doesn't know her, and Callum scares her and she doesn't know how to find the rest of them and she doesn't want to go back to the hospital.  
She _won't_ go back to the hospital.

And then Holly looked at her - really, properly looked at her - nine years old and small for her age, white blonde hair dripping with rain and sticking to her face, shivering from the cold, and with a fire burning fierce within her eyes.  
She looked a sight, and she looked mad, but she didn't look a liar.

Reese could see in Holly's eyes the moment the fragile belief started to take hold, and felt the hope in her heart grow exponentially in mere seconds.

"Who _are_ you?" She demanded, brown hair and a flame of her own within her eyes, and fear across her face - not fear of Reese, but fear of what she doesn't know, fear of what Reese does knows - and Reese feels those burgeoning tendrils of hope die within her, because Holly does think that she's mad, and she's not going to believe her, and she never going to go home, and ...

" _REESE!_ " A voice - her mum's voice - screams in the near distance, a street or two away at most, and Reese's heart clenches inside her, and she tries one last time.

"I'm Reese," she tells the girl that she knows both so much and so little about, staring Holly straight in the face, forcing every shred of truth she has ever possessed to shine out of her almost tearful eyes. "And where I come from, we're friends." It's pushing the truth, but bridges were being built between the two of them, and honestly, Reese just doesn't care. "I need your help." A tear drips from the corner of her eye, mixing with the rain almost instantly, but Holly saw it anyway. "Please, Holly. Help me."

And it's almost there, but it's not quite, and Reese knows she has to push it all the way if Holly is going to help her, her walls that she built around herself and her heart are too strong for anything but.

Stretching her hand out, she concentrates on a potted plant that lay only a few metres away from Holly's feet and screwed her eyes almost shut, and it's easy and it's hard, and she's never really done it on purpose truly before, but she can't fail, and the sheer disbelief that flashes across Holly's face as the pot raises up off of the ground is worth the soul deep weariness that suddenly lands in her bones.  
Gravity reigns once again not long after, but Reese knew she held on for as long as she could, and it was long enough for Holly to believe her.

"Come with me." The elder girl mutters, leading Reese to a certain City Hotel that she knew extremely well.

\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--

It's easier than it should be to sneak a child into the Hotel, most of the workers they pass assume they are sisters, or cousins at least, as do the other residents - none of them even care why the two of them are alone, nor why they are soaked to the skin, and Holly makes up her mind to write a letter to the company when this ... fiasco ... was over, explaining that very thought to them.

She glances over at the makeshift bed underneath the window, placed where her parents would not see if they entered the room when she was not expecting them too, and smiled approvingly.  
More a nest than a true bed, it was a pile of pillows and blankets, arranged in such a way that looked to be extremely comfortable to the smaller girl - in the sense that said girl was currently curled like a blonde kitten and not complaining in the slightest.  
"What are you looking for?" Holly asked, honestly curious, and desperate for conversation with someone similar to her own age, and who spoke the same language that she did - an occurrence that happened far too rarely for her liking.  
Reese shrugged, or it looked like she shrugged anyway, Holly couldn't quite identify the movement due to skewed positioning. "My... _Our_ Tribe. A way to get home. Someone who believes me." Reese's voice was matter of fact - this was normal, she was used to this, the close quarters, the strange places to sleep, even if this Holly was slightly nicer than the other Holly.

 _The real Holly._  
The voice snarked inside Reese's mind, the identity of the voice having changed yet again, still female, but less familiar.  
Reese shook her head (the identity of the voices that were sending her crazy being of no real importance at the moment), and smiled at the older girl, silently thanking for trusting her, for believing her, for helping her.

 _For saving you._  
The voice was quieter, almost apologetic - because this was Holly, and it didn't matter if it wasn't the Holly that she was used to, she was still Holly, and she still cared, and she was still going to help Reese to go home.

"Goodnight Holly," Reese whispered, a yawn easily masking her words as her eyes fluttered closed.  
"Goodnight Reese," she called back, looking over to where the small girl lay, but gentle snores were already escaping her resting form.  
Holly smiled softly to herself, and fell asleep before she could over-analyse the events of the past hour or so.

That night, Reese dreamt fitfully - despite the fact that her dreams were more visions than true dreams - her dreams were visions of Muna and of screaming and of electricity and of luminite and of the Black Tor Mine, and of voices that whisper at the edges of her consciousness and suddenly she knew all that she had to do.


	4. All It Takes Is One Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You're going home_.  
>  The voice promised, and Reese couldn't bring herself to find fault in the statement.

The next morning passed longer for Reese than it did for Holly - now she knew what she had to do, where she had to go - she wanted to leave _this second._  
Sooner if at all possible.  
From her hiding space in the bathroom, Reese kept her ear pressed up against the door, listening as best as she could to the conversation between Holly and her parents.

"...Okay, goodbye darling." Holly's mum told her daughter, "We'll be back at about five o'clock, and then we can do whatever _you_ want."  
"Bye mum." Holly called back, as the door shut.  
Both girls remained where they were for a few moments, to ensure that neither parent would burst back into the room.

Then the bathroom door opened suddenly, and it was all Reese could do, not to end up sprawled on the floor at Holly's feet.  
Holly rolled her eyes, rummaging through her suitcase, before throwing an outfit at the younger girl.  
"Come on then," she stated, sounding exasperated to an ear more untrained in the intricacies of 'Holly' than Reese. "If we want to get to Yorkshire today, we'd better be leaving soon."  
Reese raised an eyebrow, an action immediately copied by the room's other inhabitant, before turning to go back into the bathroom and change.  
It was going to be a long day.

\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--

An hour and a half later, Reese sat by the window in a train currently hurtling past the country side faster than she had travelled for a long time, feeling slightly sick, and wearing probably the only outfit that Holly owned that fit her enough that it didn't make her look like a toddler playing dress up in her mother's clothes.

"Tickets please," the ticket collector requested, and Holly reached into her bag, pulling out the two orange and white tickets, handing them over to be marked.  
Silently, the man returned the pieces of card, his eyes catching Reese's for a fraction of second.  
He stilled, "You're that missing girl from the news this morning," he stated, his voice emotionless.  
"I would know if _I_ was a missing girl, would I." She told him, trying not to let her fear seep into her eyes.  
"No, you are that missing girl - Reese something wasn't it?" He turned to Holly for confirmation, but she wasn't responding to him.

_Lie._  
The voice was quiet, as if trying to avoid detection, but in this case, Reese was well ahead of the voice.

"No, my name's Rachel." Reese's eyes were now wide and fearful having given up the fight for it not to show, and she too turned to Holly for help.  
"Stay away my sister," Holly all but snarled, "You're scaring her." Holly's face left no room for mis-interpretation, and the ticket collector moved onto the rest of the inhabitants of the carriage, glancing back towards them every few minutes.  
Reese closed her eyes and lay her head to rest against Holly's shoulders, intending to spend as much of the four hours remaining in their journey sleeping as possible.

\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--

"Reese," The name was hissed, as Holly shook the little girl's shoulder, "Reese, we're coming into the station."  
Reese's body woke almost instantly, even if her mind didn't follow the same time scale, and followed Holly off of the fairly modern train onto a train station that _may_ have been modern back in the Victorian era, without even thinking about it.  
Then the cool air hit her face, and her mind began racing through every possibility when she saw something she hadn't seen since she had woken up here - a golden trail lighting the path ahead, leading in the same direction as the tugging in her chest.

Holly looked over the top of Reese's head at the winding country road that lay before them, before turning back to the young blonde.  
"You have got to be kidding me." She dead-panned, her eyes not amused in the slightest.  
Reese grins nervously, "It's only four miles," she muttered almost silently, but Holly caught it anyway.  
Sighing, she swung her rucksack onto her bag and started to move. "Well. We'd better get a move on then, hadn't we?"  
Reese grinned wider, a proper grin - possibly her first since arriving in this world that wasn't hers, and raced to catch up with the older girl's longer legs, trusting in the familiar pulling sensation that was leading them towards the luminite, and that was leading her towards the mine.

_You're going home_.  
The voice promised, and Reese couldn't bring herself to find fault in the statement.


	5. Back Through The Looking Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reese then turned to the older girl. "What are you doing here?"  
> The older girl widened her eyes in comical disapproval, "What? No 'thank you for risking your own life to save mine?'" She made a strange noise with her mouth. "Kids these days."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey, if you're reading this you've probably read the whole story - and I hope you're liking it. I want people to comment, so I'm doing a competition ... thing.  
> The first two people to vote get their own super powered character in my next multi-chapter Sparticle Mystery story (spoiler: It'd going to involve explosions. Probably a lot.)  
> And if I like the character, I might bring it back into other stories as well.  
> Just leave the name of the character, as well as their super power (and any other info you like, though I may choose to ignore the last bit).  
> If you're late to the party, and two people have already commented, you can still leave character ideas (or plot ideas) which I may or may not choose to incorporate, but only the first two will definitely be involved.  
> Anyway, have fun.

It was easier than it should have been, to break into the ' **Top Secret Underground Base That Is Experimenting With Things That Can Make The Adults Disappear** ', (bold _and_ underlined) an action that Reese and Holly managed to accomplish by waiting until an actual employee of the base needed to leave, and sneaking through the door - an entrance that was almost anti climatic.

The Project isn't abandoned like it was the first time Reese came here, with the real Sparticles, instead it was overflowing with scientists and workers and secretaries and people who job title was probably glorified coffee maker and everything and everyone in between.

 _Don't get distracted Reese. You still have the hardest part left._  
The voice drifted against the corners of the little girl's mind, just soft enough that it permeated her thoughts while not distracting her from her current actions of racing towards the cryogenic cell.

As the only one of the two of them who knew what she was doing, or where she was going, Reese led Holly through the Project, dodging and straight out avoiding the quickly increasing number of employees who noticed the two children inside their base.  
Her destination was clear in her mind, the cryogenic cell may have been it's name, but without it's position, the name meant nothing - the tugging in her chest increased and Reese found herself being led to the very room where she had met Muna, the very room that would allow her to go home.

There - the yellow door, a shining beacon of hope in these grim surroundings, in this mass of adults. Reese grabbed Holly's hand, refusing to let go, tightening her grip almost imperceptibly with each passing second.  
Well, maybe not so imperceptibly judging by the expression on Holly's face.

Finally reaching the room, she pulled Holly in behind, slamming the door behind them, swiftly turning the handle upwards, a quick wave of the younger girl's hand being all it took to lock the door against the unwanted guests now stuck outside the small box room.

Holly glanced around the said room - and at first glance, it looked like nothing special - with half the walls were covered in white paint, and the other half in what looked like posh tin foil, it was just another science-y room, albeit a science-y room that featured Reese simply stood in the middle of the room, staring at what looked like empty space before her, with just a thick insulation padded tube passing through in front of her.

Holly also tried very hard not to think of the hundred different ways that this room could kill her - even without taking into account the 'Danger - Very High Levels of Radiation' sign that had been hung on the outside of the door.

"Hello Muna," Reese whispered, barely audible, to thin air, and Holly opened her mouth to question the younger girl about talking to things, or people, who aren't there, when a blue light swirled in front of them, solidifying into two forms - one of a girl that appeared younger than Reese, and one of a girl that appeared to be about Holly's own age.  
The two younger girls embraced like old friends, and they probably were, while the older checked her watch with a slightly worried expression on her face.  
Reese then turned to the older girl. "What are you doing here?"  
The older girl widened her eyes in comical disapproval, "What? No 'thank you for risking your own life to save mine?'" She made a strange noise with her mouth. "Kids these days."  
Then two caught each other with the corner of their eyes, and couldn't hold back their laughter.

"Do you mind introducing me to your friends Reese?" Holly's eyes were confused, not entirely sure of what she had just witnessed.  
"This is Natasha," Reese gestured to the elder girl, who was on her hands and knees, already inspecting the walls for ... something. "She's Kat cousin, and runs the Camp." Reese paused, suddenly aware that Holly didn't know who Kat was, or what the Camp was - although in fairness, Reese wasn't entirely sure what the Camp was. "Kat's the co-Tribe Leader with Sadiq - or at she is if they weren't serious about making me Tribe Leader." Her voice trailed off, as Reese became immersed in another memory that this Holly would never know.  
Shaking her head, she gestured for a second to the girl she had embraced. "And this is Muna," Reese introduced, "She lives in Limbo, that's the space between the dimensions."

Holly found she didn't have an answer for that.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
"What are you doing?" Reese questioned, as Natasha seemed to simply be ripping random sections of the wall out in a way that didn't seem safe.  
Or plausible, considering the girl's size, and the strength of the walls.  
"How are you doing that then?" Reese asked again, and Tasha sighed, in a way that suggested she wished Reese would shut up while she worked, but she turned around to face the blonde anyway.  
"Here's us," she told the little girl, holding up one hand, loosely fisted, "and here's our world," she held her hand in the same position. Her hands dropped as she concentrated once more on the job in front of her. "Muna's job is to make sure we reach the right dimension once we are in Limbo."  
"So what are you doing then?" Reese questioned as the teenager muttered almost silently under her breath.  
"I'm building what will propel us into Limbo in the first place. Of course, we still need to power it ourselves - that's where you and Muna come in."  
"Where do I come in?" Holly questioned, feeling extremely self conscious.  
"At this point, you're not." Tasha replied bluntly. "You were needed to believe in Reese and to help her to get here. We will give you a lift back to your room though."  
Holly tried not to look put out at the fact that she was, in essence, a babysitter around super powered children.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
Reese frowned, replaying Natasha's voice inside her mind for what was probably the fifth time in as many minutes.  
"It was you." Reese murmured under her breath, the conclusion sounding all too simple once she had worked it out.  
"What was me?" Natasha's ears caught the statement easily enough, and managed to look curious even with her back to the blonde girl.  
"The voice, the one that was telling me what to do. It was you." Reese's voice sounds slightly awed, but that isn't the portion that Holly's mind processes first.  
"You've been hearing voices!" She demands of the younger girl.  
"Yeah," Reese replies easily with no pretence of a lie, "At first it sounded like Sadiq, then it sounded like you, and then it sounded like Natasha, but I didn't realise it sounded like Natasha until just now." She turned so she was facing said brunette. "Why were you speaking in my head."  
"You're a clever girl Reese. But sometimes you just need a little push towards the obvious." Natasha stood from where she was crouched and glanced over her quick work appraisingly, all too aware of the adults pounding at the unmoving door behind them, and how little time they have before the workers will enter the room.

"Hold hands." Natasha ordered, her voice leaving no room for disobedience.  
Holly rolled her but did as she was told anyone, Muna holding her hand on one side, Tasha holding her arm on the other, Reese directly opposite to her.  
Reese turned to Muna, her eyes wide and innocent, almost, "Just like last time?" She questioned.  
"Just like last time." Muna confirmed, her own eyes firmly locked on Natasha's, and it looked like they were talking, but no words were coming out.  
Though considering what she had been though in the past two days or so, telepathy wasn't really all that big, or strange, a leap to make.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
For a moment there was nothing.  
And then there was everything.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
Holly saw the blue crackle of electricity before the others, or at least she assumed she did, but she guessed they probably felt it before she did - you know, with the weird super power things, and the flying plant pots and the mind speaking and the, oh, appearing out of thin air.  
Her next thought was - why aren't I dead?

Physics was never Holly's favourite subject, it didn't even get near to the top five either, but she knew that this much electricity passing through a body (or four) should kill, and she was most decidedly not dead.  
Unless she was dead already, and this was some weird after life thing, but Holly thought it better to leave that particular line of reasoning well alone.

If it were at all possible, the power appeared to increase at that moment, a slightly uncomfortable pressure building in her upper back and shoulders, and she tensed as a result.

It was also at that moment that Reese's eyes flew open, this was an almost familiar sensation to her, except this time Muna was stronger than she was, because Muna was closer to her own base of power than Reese.  
Weakness was a feeling common to the blonde girl, and she resolved not to let it become so.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
For a moment there was everything.  
And then there was nothing.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
Holly saw it happen in a fraction of second, Reese's eyes widening as Natasha's grip loosened slightly, before the two appeared to be yanked backwards by their stomachs and they disintegrated into the blue cloud that Natasha and Muna had arrived from - the sudden backlash of power released by the two shutting down every last vestige of electricity in the used-to-be-mine, just as the door finally burst open to reveal a good number of navy blue clad workers.

Muna's grip tightened and Holly disappeared from the room just as the red emergency lights flickered on.  
\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--\\--/--  
Back in Holly's hotel room, her phone began buzzing with a forgotten alarm.  
 _5:00_


	6. I Clicked My Ruby Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl's gotta have some secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finished! This is my first ever multi chaptered story that I've finished in this fandom, and only second one ever - the other being a Casualty one which is on my fanfiction.net site, and you should go and read it because it's really good, and I'll stop shamelessly plugging my stories ... now.
> 
> Anyway, this is a really good day for me to stop because guess what, no stop guessing, you won't get it - it's my birthday today!! Yay! Happy birthday, me! Chocolate and presents and French exams and Maths exams, the four ingredients of a truly brilliant birthday (almost) - so I take it no one wants to be a character in my story - should I be offended by that? Well then, you can just leave me a birthday greeting, and tag the character idea onto the end then.
> 
> Please?
> 
> Back to story, and actual reason you're probably here - no one reads stories for the mental authors insane author's note - well, no sane person anyway, and I've gone off topic again, so before I forget...
> 
> Hope you enjoy the story, don't forget to leave a comment.

Holly looked around the room in curiosity.  
"But this is my...How did we...Who are y...What..." Her voice trails off as she stares gormlessly at the very hotel room she had woken up in that morning.  
Muna grinned, an exact copy of Reese's, and Holly would think they were sisters, except for the small matter of ethnicity, and, oh, one of them living in Limbo - and wasn't that the place where dead people who didn't want to be dead live or something, Holly was sure she had read that somewhere...possibly.  
"Goodbye Holly," she called, "Have a good life." And then she disappeared in a flash of blue smoke.

A short half-amused gasp left Holly's lips, as she shook her head slightly - real life was going to take a bit of getting used to after the past day and a half.

The door handle wriggled, and then opened to show her parents, in the middle of yet another argument.  
It was her mother who broke of her parents _conversation,_ to turn to her only child.  
"Have you had a good day, sweetie?"She asked, pressing a small kiss against Holly's forehead.  
Holly smiled, and recent memories flashed behind her eyes, "The best." She answered, completely honestly.

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The blue segued into white, as a thousand different portals spun past faster than the speed of light, far too quickly for Reese to truly see the contents of any of them.  
As suddenly as the ride began, it stopped once again, leaving Reese and Natasha stood in the middle of a field, a strong midday sun beating down from overhead, and woods surrounding the small clearing, shadows deep and mysterious within them.  
Reese had barely let go of the older girl's hand when a voice screamed from a few metres away.  
" _REESE!_ " The voice was familiar, oh so familiar, and Reese couldn't help the grin that spread across her face involuntarily at the thoughts that passed through her head in the millisecond it took her to spin around on the spot, ready for the pair of young brunette heads racing across the field, the rest of their Tribe following shortly behind.

A thousand ... well, nine ... questions broke out at once, Reese's eyes darting from member to member, processing the questions but not quickly enough to provide any sort of coherent answer.

Natasha broke in quickly, separating herself from the Tribe, "If anyone follows me, I have no qualms about beating you to death with a paper towel. You have been warned."  
Kat disappeared after her, following her cousin into the farmhouse anyway.

Finally Reese found who her eyes were scanning for, stood at the back of the group, a little off, a little out of place, Holly stood almost on her despite being surrounded by people.  
The blonde girl darted through the small crowd and threw her arms around the older girl who had more or less saved her life.  
"Thank you," Reese whispered in Holly's ear, and Holly smiled, nervous and unsure because she didn't know what Reese is thanking her _for_ exactly, but Reese is back finally, after three days of terror for the whole Tribe (ever since Frankie's screams that Reese had ... vanished ... into thin air, and the tight look on Natasha's face hadn't done much to anyone's nerves at rest), and Holly _is_ a little fond of the little blonde girl - she's family, although Holly would _never_ admit it outside of her own head.  
Reese withdrew herself from Holly and turned to the rest of the Tribe, words spilling out as she attempted to explain where she had been and what she had been doing.

 _Home_.  
Natasha's voice whispered, faintly brushing the edge of her mind before disappearing completely, and Reese's grin widened ever so slightly in agreement.

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"Out," Tasha demands, shoeing the two brunette ten years old out the bedroom that all three of them used, despite the younger ones protests.  
Kat waits until she's sure they're gone. "Okay," she orders, all but throwing her cousin onto her bed. "Spill."  
"What?" Tasha counters.  
"Everything." Kat's voice is firm, and she wants answers, she's tired of being kept in the dark by her younger cousin.  
"I've told you loads already," Tasha whined, rolling over and hiding her face in her pillow - she'd prefer more than just the one, but being Camp Leader doesn't give her automatic privileges in everything.  
"Not enough," Kat wasn't giving up this time, not like all the times before. "I've let you off before, but not this time, this was _Reese_ , and she could have been seriously hurt - lost forever - and she's my, our, sister, all because you haven't explained it to us, anything to us really."  
Tasha muttered under my breath, "Not my fault stupid thirteen year olds can't follow orders, and just _stay away_ from my family."  
Kat grinned, "I didn't know you cared so much." It was fun spending time with Tasha, she had a way of reverting everyone's age slightly, making them act a bit less than they should. "But seriously," Kat's face hardened, "spill."

Tasha sighed. "People like me, like you, like Reese, they're becoming more common."  
Kat's eyes widened then she frowned, clutching her hand close to her chest, remembering all the trouble she's gone through to hide what she can do. "What do you mean, more common?"  
"I mean there are four in your Tribe alone, and pretty much everyone you've met at the Camp is Gifted as well." Tasha climbs off of her bed, and starts to re-arrange her few belongings, just to give her the excuse to keep her back to her cousin.  
"That's why I don't want the adults back. Not really anyway. I won't stop you, but I don't want them back." Her voice is dull, her motions halted.  
"Because of ... the things we do?" Kat was confused, "But the adults, maybe they are learning these things as well. Maybe they'll understand."  
Tasha twirls on the spot, now nose to nose with her slightly shorter cousin. "Yeah, because humans first reactions to things that are different or outdated is ' _Let's leave it alone_ '. "  
"That's not tr..."Kat tries to protest, but Tasha protests her.  
"Can you _guarantee_ me that people like us will be safe in the Old World. No, you can't. But in the New World, we can be accepted. _We_ can be accepted, Kit Kat." Her voice broke slightly at the end, the sheer longing rushing through every syllable, the desire for the World she could build shining through every word.

Kat didn't have a reply for that and instead simply wrapped her arms around her cousin, offering the comfort she had been giving for so long, and yet never received.  
"So that's what you're doing here then, providing a safe place?"  
Tasha jerkily nodded her head, and brushed away unshed tears. "For singles and for Tribes." She confirmed.  
"And you're doing this because you want to, or because you want to be Professor X." There was a joking undertone to Katherine's words, a joking that Tasha needed at the moment - as Tasha's pre-Disappearance obsession with the X-Men was well known by anyone who knew her even vaguely.  
"I have too much hair to be the Professor." She snarked back.

"So how did Reese fall through to _another dimension_ then?" Kat asked after a few minutes of silence.  
Tasha shrugged, "The usual way - thirteen year old boy completely disregards orders on where and where not he is allowed to leave Dimension Portals. Where and where not he is allowed to make Dimension Portals for that matter. Don't worry, he'll be punished." Tasha assured Kat, with the tone of someone who has dealt with this kind of situation before, and judging by the weary expression currently situated upon her face, the same situation probably caused by the same culprit. "Anyway, Reese was lucky, there are worse universes to have fallen into - worlds of lava and sulphur, and a really cool one where dinosaurs still existed, and I'm too old to be getting excited over this stuff aren't I?" She finished with a self-deprecating grin.  
Kat laughed, barely more than a short puff of air but the intent was still the same. "So this is just another day at the office for you then? Nine year telepaths falling into different dimensions due to portals left by another kid." Her voice was incredulous, and with reason - had she asked the same thing of anyone else just a few months before, even after the Disappearance, she would have been laughed off as a freak.  
"You're one to talk." Came the quick retort, "Or don't you remember getting stuck mid-phase and trapped inside a wall?" Tasha laughed at the memory. "You terrified the pants off of that lady walking the dog."  
Kat opened her mouth in disbelief, "You're the one who convinced her I was a ghost, risen from the dead, ready to avenge my dead children." She sounded put off, or at least tried to, it was hard style to pull off while nearly cracking a rib laughing.

The two fell into a comfortable silence, lasting for only a few moments before Kat spoke up again.  
"So... besides me and Reese, who are the other two Gifted in my Tribe?" She asked, as nonchalantly as she could.  
Tasha grinned and mimed zipping her lips up, a twinkle in her eyes.

After all, a girl's gotta have some secrets.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and please leave a comment,  
> Mia


End file.
